graphics on startup

hi, newbie here,
got abit of a prob with my pc which shows up as follows,
On startup writing on screen is not right , extended letters etc and vertical lines on screen, when it enters xp loading screen it blanks out and restarts and keeps looping, in safe mode it will run but images and backgrounds have a matrix of red dashes across it, tried changing ram but no diff, got feeling it might be prob with mboard not the grafix card (6600gt) as it does it on startup, any help with this prob before i blow loads on a new one?
many thanks

It still has to go through the graphics card on startup. Can you try a different card/onboard graphics just to rule it out?

Has this just started happening ? Have you replaced any hardware in your rig recently ?
As kalniel says, the gfx card must be operational from the start else you'll get no picture at all.

/me thinks you will be buying a new gfx card shortly ;)

thanks guys, i'll have to dig one up, trouble is mines a AGP board so to upgrade/replace gfx I'll need to get another board as its rare to find a agp card now, i might as well upgrade the cpu as well cos its not much more s a bundle.

its been gradually getting worse on startup, it used to freeze and restart as well but that was down to a faulty ram stick and some iffy drivers

is there a test i can do on the card just to check?, dm says its working fine